On Saturday, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told a group of high school students that they do not have a right to health care.
When a student asked him if he considers health care to be a right or a privilege, Johnson replied, "I think it's probably more of a privilege. Do you consider food a right? Do you consider clothing a right? Do you consider shelter a right? What we have as 'rights' is 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"
After describing everything beyond that "a limited resource," Johnson went on to paraphrase a speech delivered by his Republican colleague Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
"He said the minute you consider health care a right, well, who's going to satisfy that right? And those people that have the skill to satisfy that right, what does that make them if they are forced to provide you with that rightful product or service?"
As Fox News contributor Chris Pergram noted in an editorial on Sunday, the Republican Party has developed an obsession with repealing Obamacare, one that has caused them to harm their popularity by pushing for a series of health care bill that wind up being unpopular due to the fact that they would take health insurance away from millions of people.
"What drives Republicans up the wall is that Democrats managed to run all of the parliamentary traps and artfully thread the legislative needles in such a way that they passed ObamaCare," Pergram wrote.
He later added, "The health care issue has crawled under the skin of congressional Republicans. It viscerally eats at them that they can’t enjoy the same legislative and success on such a complex issue as health care reform."
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